Reflections on Years Past and Into the Future

Posted bypaberryrnPosted inUncategorized

Many wellness and spiritual gurus will tell you to use this period of time to reflect between the winter solstice and the turn of the New Year. Reflection is good, however rumination is not. You cannot change the past no matter how hard you dwell on your “what ifs” and “could or should haves.”

When the year has been bad, or even the last couple of years with the pandemic, isolation, and wars, Christians talk about this being the EndTimes. No one knows when the Endtimes will be. It is like looking into a very dark mirror thinking we see something. I don’t believe in the “EndTimes” as much as I believe in “Man’s” foolishness. Men, not women, have initiated the wars and our consumerism has potentiated pandemics, when men say, “How are we going to pay for this?”

We are all closer to death as each year rolls through. Sometimes, we have eventful years of joy or defeat. Other years moved swiftly through without one memory taking a foot hold. Regardless, we live! Some of us move forward and work to change the current paradigm of consumerism and greed, like moving from a fossil fuel economy to wind and solar, free healthcare and immunizations, and food and water that is free from toxins. We want a better world.

So, instead of dwelling with and on the past, move forward in this world. Be the change you want to see. Sign on letters for a better world. Stop using all plastics in your household, donate to food banks, write the leaders to stop making war on people, and start working together towards this better world.

I am visualizing a better world. I show up and collaborate for that better world. And one day, it will be a better world even if I am not there to see it.

Published by paberryrn

Peggy Ann Berry, PhD, MSN, RN, COHN-S, CLE, PLNC, FAAOHN earned her doctorate from University of Cincinnati in 2015. She is a past Graduate Nurse Intern to DOL OSHA, a NIOSH Education and Resource Grant recipient and an American Nurses Foundation Scholar. She is a Founding Fellow with the U. S. Academy of Workplace Bullying, Mobbing, and Abuse and a past Graduate Nurse Intern to OSHA, past Malcolm Baldrige Examiner, and a past senior examiner with The Partnership for Excellence. Dr. Berry is a member of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments and the Ohio Nurses Association, as well as past chair and member of the Environmental and Public Health Caucus. Peggy has been advocating for clean air, access to potable water, chemical transparency with fracking solution, and methane regulation by congressional and state visits, press conferences and social media with and for the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, Ohio Environmental Council, Sierra Club, and Mom’s Clean Air Force. In addition to being the LWV Ohio volunteer lobbyist, she has been an environmental advocate since 2012, participating in EPA and OSHA requests for testimony on chemical transparency and Methane New Source Rules, collaborating across many NGOs to promote clean water, air and tillable soil. She has presented and published on the human health effects of workplace bullying, climate change, and migraines.